Telephone distribution closures or pedestals are used to provide a splice housing or are adapted to contain splices of telephone service wires. The pedestals normally house a loop of buried cable, and service wires are brought into the housing and connected to pairs of wires of the cable.
The conventional pedestal includes a pivotably mounted divider plate separating the vertical cavity of the pedestal into a rearward cavity portion and a forward cavity portion. The rearward cavity portion is adapted to house a vertically extending loop of telephone cable. The divider plate is pivotable to an open position to permit access to the rearward cavity portion.
In practice, the insulation and electrically conductive shield of the cable are stripped from a portion of the cable loop to thereby expose the wires of the cable. A terminal block is mounted on the divider plate, and wires are spliced to selected pairs of the wires of the cable and are connected to the terminal block. The service wires brought into the pedestal are then connected to the terminal block so as to provide electrical connection between the service wires and the selected wires of the buried cable.
During installation of service, a first serviceman or "splicer" attends to splicing of the cable, i.e. connection of selected ones of the wires of the cable to the appropriate terminals of the terminal block. The terminal block is mounted on the divider plate such that the splicing wires from the cable can be connected to the terminal block from the rearward side of the divider plate, and the service wires can be connected from the front side of the divider plate. In practice, it is preferred that once the "splicer" has completed the splicing operation, the divider plate will be moved to its closed position to preclude access to the splice. A second serviceman or "installer" will then attend to connection of the service wires to the terminal block.
In practice, if an installer makes an error in connection of the service wires to the terminal block, he may seek to correct his error by opening the divider plate and connecting an additional pair of wires of the cable to the terminal block. This results in errors in record keeping for the telephone service company and can produce a tangle of wires in the splice area, i.e. "poor housekeeping."
Another common problem in connection with splicing of telephone cables in pedestals is that moisture, plant growth, insects and animals may attack the splice connections within the pedestal thereby causing deterioration, and degradation of the conductor insulation is commonly caused by heat in the pedestals and exposure of the conductor insulation to ultraviolet light. Rehabilitation of the wiring in the pedestals is a costly program for nearly all telephone service companies.
Another common problem in connection with splicings in telephone closures or pedestals is that due to the large number of wire pairs normally involved, the splice may yield a mass of tangled wires and housekeeping problems.
The prior art methods of splicing have sought to correct some of the problems associated with "housekeeping" of this mass of wires and in connection with protecting the wires from deterioration. These prior art efforts have generally included methods of wrapping the completed splice in a casing or plastic bag and then pouring an encapsulating material into the bag. Another prior art method for protecting the splice includes the steps of covering the splice with a heat shrinkable plastic sleeve and then heating the sleeve with a torch to cause it to form a tight enclosure around the spliced wires. Both of these prior art methods tend to require a great deal of additional labor, and in the case of the heat shrinkable sleeve method, damage to the splice can result if the heat shrinkable wrap or sleeve is not properly heated.
Telephone communication and transmission cables and service lines also normally include an electrically conductive shield surrounding the wires of the cables or services wires and intended to protect these wires from electrical interference. In the installation of such cables and service wires, it is common practice to provide means for grounding these electrically conductive shields of the cables at selected locations along the cables. The prior art apparatus for grounding the electrically conductive shields commonly includes a ground strap having one end connected to the cable shield by a bond clamp, and an opposite end of the ground strap is bolted to a ground wire or ground rod housed in the telephone distribution closure or pedestal.
It is also commonly desirable to test the continuity of the electrically conductive shields of telephone cables by disconnecting the cables from ground and connecting test probes to the cable shields. With the prior art arrangements, each ground strap must be released from the ground rod before it can be tested and then following testing, it must again be bolted to the ground rod.
Conventional telephone cable pedestals also house ground brackets for use in grounding the electrically conductive shields of service wires coming into the pedestal and being connected to the terminal block. One prior art clamp arrangement for use in joining a number of service wires together and for connecting the electrically conductive shields of those services wires to a ground rod or ground wire is illustrated in the U.S. Sterling Pat. No. 4,136 423 issued Jan. 30, 1979.
One of the features of the prior art service wire clamp arrangements, such as that shown in the Sterling patent is that it is necessary to insert the cables from a rearward portion of the clamp assembly and then tighten a bolt or screw which is on a forward or front side of the bracket or clamp assembly. Accordingly, the operator must have access to both the rearward and the front side of the cable clamp assembly. Additionally, since the cables must be inserted into the clamp assembly from the rearward side of the bracket or clamp assembly where access may be limited, placement or arrangement of the wires in the bracket assembly may be difficult and time consuming.